Ancient Calendar & Pagan Holidays: June 19th: A Controversial Hera

Although today’s Calendar hasn’t a thing to do with Egypt, I’d like to point out something Egyptians started to do that we eventually see throughout every other culture throughout History.

Perhaps Normandi Ellis said it best in her book, Awakening Osiris, when she wrote…

"That which can be named must exist. That which is named can be written. That which is written shall be remembered. That which is remembered lives."

Her book has been one of my few favorites for too many years to count and even though today, this Pagan and her Pen are not even entering Egypt, I am still reminded of those words.

Egyptians took them to heart… anyone a Priest wanted to rid themselves of, they simply etched out their names removing them from anyone who may read them. If you can not read a name, you can not know it. If you can not know it then it must not exist.

Cultures to come would follow this example but they would also take it one step further…perhaps, they would leave the name but instead, rewrite their story. Reshape them into something less than what they were previously.

Hera is the perfect example.

At one time, Hera, mother of all, predated all gods that would eventually enter the Greek scene—even Zeus. Hera was respected and loved. She had the power to give others immortality in the form of a drink called, Ambrosia. Her name became titles linking her to previous cultures. Queens connected themselves to her using the words, "Holy One" which had significant meaning to all things Hera.

But at some point, Hellenic writers recreated things that were not in the Mother’s favor. They attempted to make Hera a lesser deity than, say, Zeus. She became the cause of all their quarrels, a jealous wife, who was out to destroy everything and anyone standing in her way. And let’s not forget, whether or not an unfaithful Zeus took a shine to them.

Despite Man’s crimes against the reputation and story of Hera, she still managed to survive well up into the Middle Ages, where women of the craft and Old ways, still whispered legends of Hera’s magical garden of the Apples of Immortality grew somewhere within’ Fairyland.